Cities are breeding spaces for innovations in the agro-food sector with the potential to foster the development of local niche networks and a food sustainability transition. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for the context-related development of urban food niche organizations and their networks of change agents. With a qualitative analysis of three niche-establishing organizations and their networks, we address the lack of knowledge on spatial-relational dynamics shaping the development of niche organizations and their networks. The identified dynamics are structured along the connotations of geographic, cognitive, social and institutional proximity within the niche networks, to the to the dominant actors, rules, and practices of the urban food system's regime and to society. For each niche network, we defined a strategic orientation that might lead to a specific development path. Finally, we propose strategies on how cities may foster the development of niche organizations and their networks to highlight local opportunities of supporting a food system sustainability transition, i.e., increasing food literacy, enabling access to space, and engaging in networking.
While food production and consumption processes worldwide are characterized by geographical and social distance, alternative food networks aim to reconnect producers and consumers. Our study proposes a framework to distinguish multiple dimensions of proximity in the context of Community Supported Agriculture (a type of alternative food network) and to quantitatively evaluate them. In a principal component analysis, we aggregated various detailed proximity items from a multinational survey using principal component analysis and examined their relationship with the attractiveness of Community Supported Agriculture in a multiple regression analysis. Our findings highlight the importance of relational proximity and thus of increasing trust, collaboration, and the sharing of values and knowledge within and across organizations in the food system. Rather than focusing on spatial proximity, increasing relational proximity might support alternative food networks, such as Community Supported Agriculture.
Food democracy is a concept with growing influence in food research. Food democracy deals with how actors may regain democratic control over the food system enabling its sustainable transformation. Following multi-level perspective framework's connotations, food democracy research has so far mainly focused on the niche level of the food system. An integrative approach that includes the perspectives of both the regime and the niche is still missing. This study addresses this research gap and proposes a new conceptual framework for food democracy that includes actors from the niche and the regime level. Furthermore, we apply our conceptual framework to the urban food system of Vienna (Austria) to explore the deeper meaning and practice of food democracy. Finally, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with actors at niche level (10) and regime level (25) within Vienna’s urban food system. Findings from this research broaden the perspective on food democracy and illustrate actors’ contributions at niche and regime level such as promoting organic food, re-localizing food provision, and procuring environmentally sustainable public food. Barriers to food democracy were also identified, e.g.: actors’ self-enhancement values, market-orientation, and capitalist alignment or lack of transparency. We conclude that actors at the niche and, to some extent, at the regime level may contribute to a process of on-going changes that fosters a transformation of established structures within the food system.
Urbanization processes are accompanied by growing global challenges for food systems. Urban actors are increasingly striving to address these challenges through a focus on sustainable diets. However, transforming food systems towards more sustainable diets is challenging and it is unclear what the local scope of action might be. Co-production of knowledge between science and non-science is particularly useful for analysing context-specific solutions and promise to result in more robust socio-economic, political and technical solutions. Thus, this paper aims to integrate different types and sources of knowledge to understand urban food systems transformation towards a more sustainable diet in Vienna; and, second, to analyse and reflect on the difficulties and ways forward to integrate diverse actors’ perspectives, multiple methods and epistemologies. We created different future scenarios that illustrate the synergies and trade-offs of various bundles of measures and the interactions among single dimensions of sustainable diets. These scenarios show that there is plenty of scope for local action, but co-ordination across diverse groups, interests, and types of knowledge is necessary to overcome lock-ins.
ZusammenfassungAlternative Lebensmittelnetzwerke zielen darauf ab, durch direkte Kontakte, Kommunikation und Vertrauen Nähe zwischen den beteiligten Akteurinnen und Akteuren herzustellen. Der Beitrag stellt einen deduktiv entwickelten Analyserahmen vor. Dieser dient zur Untersuchung geografischer und relationaler (organisatorischer, institutioneller, kognitiver, sozialer) Nähedimensionen, die in alternativen Lebensmittelnetzwerken wirksam sein können. Die Einsatzbreite des Analyserahmens wird anhand von zwei Fallbeispielen demonstriert – einer solidarischen Landwirtschaft im Umland Wiens sowie einen Kaffeedirekthandel zwischen Peru und Deutschland. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich in alternativen Lebensmittelnetzwerken relationale Nähe auch dann entwickeln kann, wenn keine dauerhafte geografische Nähe gegeben ist.
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